ch15

“That’s right. Good. Proceed in that direction.”

After leaving the giant’s brothers, while moving east towards my goal, I encountered a large lake and was resting Rudolph. I was also creating martial arts suitable for Rudolph, something I had been putting off.

Humans, Elves, and even the insides of giants are different, so the insides of a quadrupedal beast with horns are obviously different.

There’s the example of a divine being teaching martial arts to a chimpanzee, but that’s just a legendary tale. Humans teaching animals is limited to teaching horses a few tricks in a circus. Teaching martial arts to a deer is unprecedented.

However, my rich martial arts thinking based on knowledge from my past life, and the body of a High Elf with transcendent senses, made this seemingly impossible feat possible, albeit slowly.

My competitive spirit as a martial artist was also ignited, so I proceeded without delay.

First, I started by acquiring knowledge of deer anatomy.

I couldn’t dissect Rudolph alive to learn about his anatomy, and more importantly, the activity of blood points and meridians when dead wouldn’t be the same as when alive.

I could do it haphazardly, but to properly teach him to become a spirit beast, I had to learn his anatomy while he was alive.

So, teaching Rudolph martial arts began with the bizarre act of performing Qi cultivation on a deer.

Even in humans, there are hundreds of major blood points and meridians, and if you include minor branches, there are thousands. That’s what anatomy is.

A living body is so complex and intricately divided, and to infuse it with external energy and sense the entirety of its complex anatomy, as if taking a mold, was not an easy task.

Nevertheless, I eventually succeeded. Based on what I sensed and analyzed, considering the characteristics of animals, which, unlike humans, rarely stay still, I created and taught Rudolph a dynamic art that had better compatibility with his body and allowed him to circulate Qi even while moving, even if it was less effective than a single, large flow of Qi.

“Let’s just call it Deer Intent Movement Art.”

I stroked his neck and said.

“They say an animal that creates an inner core becomes a spirit beast after a hundred years of training, and an Imoogi lives for a thousand years to become a dragon. What will you become?”

Animals, lacking the wisdom to accumulate inner energy, generally have difficulty creating an inner core unless they accidentally eat something like a spiritual herb.

However, once they manage to create an inner core, they often live long and become spirit beasts, so Rudolph now has the potential to become one.

‘More than anything, I don’t know what’s coming, so I need to make sure he can take care of himself.’

The first thing I saw after leaving the forest was a giant straight out of mythology.

Nothing would surprise me now, but while I don’t know about my own body, it would be difficult for a forest deer who is just a bit smart, arrogant, and fearful to survive.

“You’ll get used to it soon. Let’s get going.”

He tilted his head, seemingly feeling a sense of foreignness from the unfamiliar sensation flowing through his body, but obediently let me onto his back.

Looking at him, now tamed compared to when we first met, I determined the direction.

It was still midday, so I couldn’t see the stars that would serve as a guide, but after spending several days at the lake, I had already memorized the direction, so it wasn’t difficult to find my way.

I turned the senses I had been using to feel the complex form inside Rudolph’s body back outwards.

‘I still haven’t met anyone.’

But I was sure that I would meet someone soon.

The paths I saw from the forest to the rocky mountains were mostly made by animals, but around here, there were many traces of the path itself being cleared for convenience.

The traces of something being pressed down, like wagon wheels, indicated that I had entered the territory of humans or intelligent beings equivalent to them.

And as if to prove that thought, as the sun gradually hid itself and the moon tried to show its face, something caught on the far edge of my senses as I passed through a mountain path.

Numerous entities were intertwined with each other.

Sitting on Rudolph’s back, I soared about 30 Elte into the air and used the Art of the Eyes to enhance my vision in the direction of the sensed presence.

“Oh… this looks like a jackpot.”

I said to Rudolph, who was blankly looking up at me, stunned by the sudden lightness on his back.

“It seems urgent, so we need to hurry. Follow me.”

I kicked off the sky and flew towards the place where the incident was happening.

◈        ◈        ◈

Aaaaaah! Save me!

Please… someone help me…

Is that really the time to grab that! Run!

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Kyle abandoned all the remaining luggage, grabbed a fist-sized bag of salt, gritted his teeth, and ignored the screams behind him as he ran.

Not only him, but others also started running in disheveled states.

Some were crying, others were sweating profusely with stiff faces, but all of them had anxiety, despair, and fear etched on their faces.

Awooooooooooooo!

A howl that stimulated the fear deep within their hearts.

The howling of the wolf leader who had attacked the merchant group almost made his legs give way, but he endured it by gritting his teeth.

“Shit… shit… damn son of a bitches!”

If he stopped running, he would become a target for the wolves chasing behind.

The only reason the wolves weren’t attacking right now was probably because the chasing wolves weren’t the entire pack, and the fleeing merchants were running in a herd like sheep.

Wolves have a strong pack mentality and affection for their pack, so they never risk injuring their comrades when hunting unless absolutely necessary.

They are smart beasts who properly distribute risks.

Unlike a crazy bastard like me who doesn’t know the value of his life!

Why is my head working so well in this situation?

Was my head actually smart?

Bullshit, no way.

If I were really smart, I wouldn’t be risking my life as a peddler.

I regretted being overly confident and embarking on this journey ten days ago after succeeding in a few light trades without incident.

Kyle was the fourth son of a farming family.

As you can probably guess from that alone, being born into a poor family and being the fourth son meant that there wouldn’t be much left for him later.

There would be no land to farm, no house, no horse, no cart, or even a plow left for him, the fourth son.

In the end, he would either do odd jobs under his brothers and barely make a living, or leave home and do something else.

His brothers weren’t much better than him, but he couldn’t be satisfied with a life where he could only fill his stomach while being mindful of others.

Besides, no woman would marry such a man.

So he left home.

With a pouch containing twenty-three coins, he went to Pohlen, the largest village in the area, a month’s journey away, to find work.

Pohlen felt ten times bigger than the village Kyle had been in, and it was the first time he had ever seen so many people.

The village chief of Pohlen called himself ‘King,’ and honestly, he didn’t know what the difference was, but he was recruiting people to fight other villages.

They would fight and make the people in that land their own villagers, or kill or drive them out if they didn’t obey. In this way, Pohlen was incorporating them as subordinate villages, and people and goods were gathering in Pohlen on a massive scale.

The west, where there were giant villages, a huge river inhabited by enormous water monitor lizards called crocodiles and lizardmen, and monsters, was still untouched by humans, but in the north and south, village chiefs like Pohlen, who called themselves kings, were incorporating other villages.

He didn’t like hurting other people, but he was tempted by the promise of two silver coins for each participation, so he participated in the village wars, which were terrible.

The ravaged villages were filled with screams and death, children crying for their parents, and women crying for their husbands.

Even when two silver coins fell into his hands after the work was done, he could only recall the terrible scenes in his head rather than admiring the silver coins he was seeing for the first time.

After that, he quit being a soldier and spent his days doing manual labor outside the village, which was what newcomers did.

The pay wasn’t bad compared to when he was in his hometown, but the cost of living was high, so he sighed and drank cheap alcohol at a tavern while worrying about not saving enough money.

“I made two gold coins and twelve silver coins on this trade trip.”

The sound of gold coins made him perk up.

Gold coins? His daily wage was four copper coins, and thirty copper coins made one silver coin, and about thirty silver coins made one gold coin, right?

The exchange rate between silver and gold coins changed every time, but let’s see… about a week for silver coins… about thirty weeks, right?

Wow! Kyle heard that the man had earned an amount that he would have to work for over a year without taking a day off with that ‘trade trip.’

What the man said seemed simple.

There were villages where residents of villages who had been driven out by village chiefs who called themselves ‘Kings’ like Pohlen gathered, and those villages lacked proper necessities.

Consumables like salt or iron farming tools.

Or trinkets that women would like.

Depending on the location, it was difficult to farm due to the presence of beasts or monsters, so even barley was precious.

He would bring such necessities to such places and exchange them for animal hides or forest products like precious medicinal herbs.

If he came back and sold them, he would make a lot of profit.

And from then on, Kyle gradually gathered information, collected the locations of the villages where the expelled people gathered, and slowly saved money.

The moment 10 silver coins became 15 silver coins on the first trade trip he joined, Kyle was overjoyed.

He knew that making a lot of profit meant taking that much risk, as he had experienced through his work as a soldier, even though there were places where he could make a lot of profit.

If he encountered a monster or a wolf, even if the knife he carried for self-defense was well sharpened, he wouldn’t even be able to collect his bones.

But after a few trade trips, he became greedy when he saw the gold coins in his hands.

The feeling of touching gold coins for the first time.

He had left home with only about twenty coins, and now that he had earned gold coins, he became recklessly confident.

So he spent all his savings, bought salt and goods, and set out on a trade trip. Two weeks since he left on the trade trip.

If he went about half the distance he had already traveled, he would reach his target village, and if he returned to Pohlen with the goods he traded there, he would earn more than two gold coins from this transaction, just like the merchant he had first met at the tavern.

If that happened, Kyle was going to buy a horse.

If he bought a pack horse and pulled a cart, he could carry various luggage and goods.

Since the demand for the same product was limited in any village, he could handle a wider variety of products if he was free from volume and weight restrictions.

Just a few hours ago, he was dreaming of such a future, but now he was just prey being chased by a group of grim reapers under the moonlight.

He remembered the merchant colleague who was torn apart by the claws and teeth of the wolves in the first attack.

He was the guy who said he was going to propose to the woman he liked after this trade trip was over.

He saw the face of the pitiful victim of the massacre he had seen as a soldier on the guy’s face.

“Aaaaaah!”

“Get away! Get away!”

The wolves who were driving the merchant group started attacking as the merchants became exhausted and more and more people fell behind, as if they had been waiting for it.

Kyle’s legs, which had been running with all their might, also lost strength, became entangled, and he rolled to the ground.

Do I die here? Like the humans in the village who were attacked and massacred by Pohöllein? Like the merchant companion who became wolf fodder, leaving behind the woman he was going to propose to?

As I despaired, watching the wolf lunging at my neck with its jaws wide open, ready to devour me, I gave up on everything.

Between Kyle and the wolf.

In the moonlight illuminating the night sky.

A green, glowing butterfly suddenly appeared and landed.